BEAUTIFUL BABY

“Can you believe our good fortune? Beth said to her husband as they looked into the bassinette. “He’s so beautiful.”
“Who would have thought it?” Martin said. “I was afraid he was going to come out looking like me.”
With tears in their eyes they hugged. Baby slept.
The next week the families came for the bris. The aunts oohed and aahed while the uncles talked amongst themselves and noshed.
Two weeks later they had a party for their friends.
“Can you believe it?” Martin said, “That Beth and I, homely as we are, could have such a beautiful baby?”
“With our looks—what were the odds? Beth asked. “Here. Look at our baby pictures.”
And Beth showed her and Martin’s baby pictures and it was true they were no beauties, and just as adults their noses and ears were accentuated and the smiles lopsided.
“Who would have thought that a baby from the two of us could be so beautiful? Martin asked his arm around Beth’s shoulder.
Their friends said all the right things and kitchy-cooed and aahed all over the place, but in fact saw a baby who combined the most prominent features of both parents and who was anything but beautiful.
As they lie in bed that night, Beth and Martin each wondered if the other knew.